Diego Garcia, Swept Clean & Sanitized

The indigenous
population of Diego Garcia was considered expendable by the Power
Elite who routinely seize prime real estate, either for resources
or location - inhabited or not. Dispassionate depopulation and
genocidal slaughter are standard procedures. "What if you and your
family were thrown out of your home, put on a ship, dumped on docks
somewhere, destitute? How would you like it?"1 That's the question that
journalist John Pilger justifiably posed to Bill Rammell, the
Foreign Office minister responsible for the Chagos Archipelago, a
group of sixty-five predominantly uninhabited islands in the Indian
Ocean.

Some islands, however, were populated. In the mid 1700's a few
French colonialists settled on an isolated island in the Indian
Ocean and built coconut plantations for the production of oil.
Labor was supplied by slaves abducted from various regions in
Africa - Madagascar, Senegal and Mozambique. Names and ancestry
were undocumented - slaves have always been considered property,
not human beings. Other inhabitants were Creole, descendants of
French colonials and their slaves. Additionally, a few Tamils from
southern India were taken to the Chagos Islands. From about 1760,
several generations of Chagos islanders established a shared
heritage, created a unique identity, and spoke a common language.
"They became the indigenous people of the Chagos
Archipelago."2

The main island in the Chagos Archipelago, an atoll, Diego Garcia,
was discovered by Portuguese explorers in the early 16th
century.3
Diego Garcia is strategically located almost exactly midway between
Africa and Asia, about 1,000 miles from the southern India coast.
Diego Garcia, an Equatorial paradise, has a large protected natural
harbor and experiences no serious tropical storms.4 Islanders owned
their own boats; they lived in shingled and thatched cottages; they
fished, gardened, had beloved pets and raised live stock.5 There were
villages, a school, a church, a prison, and a railway. It was, to
the islanders, a peaceful, natural, beautiful paradise.6

The Chagos Islands, including Diego Garcia was part of the island
nation of Mauritius, a British colony, situated off the coast of
Africa in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 560 miles east of
Madagascar. U.S. interest in the Chagos Islands began in 1961. Rear
Admiral Grantham of the US Navy was charged with finding a suitable
island site for a military base that would give Washington
domination in the Indian Ocean - this ultimately led to the
establishment of one of the biggest military bases outside of the
United States. The Pentagon later referred to it as an
"indispensable platform" for policing the world.7 Since 2001, Diego
Garcia is one of the destinations for CIA rendition flights and is
the location of one of the CIA's secret prisons program. This has
been confirmed by a U.S. general and the Council of Europe, a human
rights watchdog.8 On November 3, 2000, the Foreign Office
issued a new Immigration Ordinance order that ensured Diego Garcia
island would remain "as secret a place as can be found on the
planet," according to a US official.9

As a follow up, over the course of the next three years, Grantham's
group visited two islands - Aldabra and Diego Garcia. Due to
environmentalist concerns raised by the Smithsonian over the Giant
Land Tortoise, nesting sea birds and flightless birds they
"settled" for Diego Garcia.10 In February 1964, a clandestine
Anglo-American meeting was held in London to devise the best
approach for seizing the island. But Diego Garcia was part of
Mauritius which the U.S. had no interest in.

Based on the agreements reached in that secret meeting, Britain
informally granted Mauritius independence on November 8, 1965 and
officially on March 12, 1968, on the condition that they
relinquish, for 3 million pounds, complete control of the islands,
particularly Diego Garcia.11 As part of the scheme, the British
government then established a new colony consisting of the Chagos
Islands, called the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). This
would facilitate clearing the island of the indigenous
population.12 This conditional independence was
against U.N. Resolution 1514. Condemnations from the United Nations
regarding the dismembering of the Mauritian Territory were ignored
(U.N. Resolution 2066). In December 1966, Britain signed an
agreement with the U.S.A. giving the largest of the islands, Diego
Garcia, to the Pentagon on a 50 year extendable lease for use as a
military base."13

In return for the projected depopulation of Diego Garcia and its
exclusion from the British colony, London allegedly received a
generous $14 million discount on the purchase of a Polaris nuclear
weapons system, made in the U.S.14 "Britain had managed to conceal the $14
million it was paid for the fifty-year lease on the islands by
persuading the Americans to disguise the cost as a discount on the
research and development charges for a new generation of Polaris
nuclear missiles then being sold to the Royal Navy."15

Two U.S. administrations and the Labour government of Harold Wilson
contrived, during the 1960s, to "sweep" and "sanitize" the islands
(the exact words used in American documents). "Files found in the
National Archives in Washington and the Public Record Office in
London provides an astonishing narrative of official lying."16 Governments
habitually lie!

In 1966, to accommodate the un-peopling of the island the British
Foreign Office falsely claimed that the indigenous islanders were
actually temporary contract workers who could be "returned" to
Mauritius and the Seychelles, 1,000 miles away. Records would have
to be altered to "convert all the existing residents into short
term, temporary residents."17

Sir Paul Gore-Booth, permanent under-secretary at the Foreign
Office stated in August 1966: "We must surely be very tough about
this. The object of the exercise was to get some rocks that will
remain ours. There will be no indigenous population except
seagulls." Another British official, under the heading:
Maintaining the Fiction, urged his colleagues to
reclassify the islanders as "a floating population" and to "make up
the rules as we go along."18

The indigenous Chagos Islanders, about 2000 individuals who were
technically British subjects, "were never consulted or informed of
any of these administrative changes. Nor were they aware that once
a U.S. military base was established on Diego Garcia their presence
would no longer be tolerated on any of the 65 islands."19 The U.S.
Congress authorized the building of the base in December 1970.

In November 1965 and again in 1971, ordinances were written,
without parliamentary consultation, "which made it illegal for
anyone to come to the islands ever again -or, indeed, to be there
in the first place - without a permit." Violations would result in
deportation and incarceration while awaiting deportation.20

Up until March 1971, Diego Garcia's main source of income was from
the profitable copra oil plantation. "At one time, copra oil from
here and the other 'Oil Islands' provided fine machine oil and fuel
to light European lamps." During the approximately 170 years of
plantation life, coconut harvests on Diego Garcia remained fairly
constant - about four million nuts annually. The plantation years,
along with the jobs and economic security, ended with the arrival
of the U.S. military construction.21 Britain had purchased the copra
companies and immediately closed them down.22

Because Washington didn't want a "population problem," British
officials devised "the complete sterilization of the archipelago."
They withdrew crucial services and blocked supply ships carrying
food and medicine to Diego Garcia are turned back. Individuals who
temporarily left the island for urgent medical or other legitimate
reasons were not permitted to return. The intimidating British
began to "return" those alleged "transient laborers" to
Mauritius.23 The Americans had arrived by the time
Sir Bruce Greatbatch, the governor of the Seychelles, was charged
with the "sanitizing" project. He began by rounding up about 1,000
pets who were gassed "using the exhaust fumes from American
military vehicles."24 Not all of the animals died from the
gassing.

Then Greatbatch used the long, low brick shed used in the
production of coconut oil known as the coconut calorifier. The shed
housed two shelves, one above the other; the upper shelf held
coconut flesh. The lower shelf held coconut husks which were set
afire. It was economic and required no extra fuel. The flesh above
cooked and expelled its water content to create copra, an edible
fat from which oil is produced. "This was to be the pyre. A ton or
so of husks were heaped inside and set alight that day, sending up
flames and billows of black smoke."25

It took patience and time. "With the aid of rifles, strips of
strychnine-laced beef and whips made from palm fronds, the dogs
were all herded or dumped dead inside the shed" … Greatbatch
had "the fires re-stoked and the calorifier sealed with closely
fitting steel plates, and the dogs were promptly - or, according to
contemporary reports, really rather slowly - burned or suffocated."
The animal's "remains" were later "inspected" by the real brutish
beast, Bruce Greatbatch.26 The beloved pets were no longer "a
nuisance" and surely sent a message to their sorrowful owners. ...
Lizette Tallatte now in her 60s remembers "and when their dogs were
taken away in front of them, our children screamed and
cried."27

The remaining population, fearing they might be next, was loaded
onto ships, operated by Rogers & Co. "Marie Therese Mein, a
Chagossian, later says U.S. officials threatened to bomb them if
they did not leave."28 They left everything; one suitcase was
allowed. Personal family records were confiscated - the records of
births, deaths, marriages - their history.29 This is reminiscent of their
early ancestors whose names and origin were insignificant to those
who enslaved them. On one journey in rough seas, the copra
company's horses occupied the deck, while women and children were
forced to sleep on a cargo of bird fertilizer. Arriving in the
Seychelles, they were marched up the hill to a prison where they
were held until they were transported to Mauritius. There, they
were dumped on the docks.30 Between July 27, 1971 and May 26, 1973
the remaining residents were forcibly removed from the island.

Resettlement or integration assistance did not exist. Mauritius was
fast-paced, different than life on the island. Fishing and oil
pressing expertise were unnecessary. Britain allowed the Mauritius
government an extremely modest financial compensation 12 years
after the first individuals were dumped on the docks. Small plots
of land were issued to the victims which typically had to be sold
to pay previous indebtedness as a result of their years of
destitution. In order to receive this "compensation" bribe, each
person had to sign an ambiguous document renouncing his/her right
to return to Diego Garcia.31

The U.S. got what they asked for. The expulsion of 2,000 Chagos
islanders was "virtually a condition of the agreement." "These
people," according to Greatbatch, "have little aptitude for
anything other than growing coconuts. They are unsophisticated and
un-trainable." In other words, these gentle people were
expendable.32 They were literally dumped penniless on
the docks in Mauritius.

These egregious actions condemned the islanders and their families
to deep depression and poverty. Some received minimal compensation
after waiting seven years. Ninety percent of the island's former
inhabitants could not find employment and barely existed in
Mauritius's slums. Mauritius already suffered from high
unemployment and considerable poverty. Even low paying domestic
service jobs were almost impossible to find. The poverty-stricken
islanders suffered experienced discrimination. "Their diet, when
they could eat, was very different from what they were used
to."33

No one was allowed to stay on the part of the island unoccupied by
the U.S. military or on the two remaining islands.34 Perhaps the U.S.
military had something to hide? This highly secret "mass
kidnapping" preceded by conspiracy was unknown to the British
Parliament and the U.S. Congress for almost a decade. There were no
newspaper reports - nothing!35 This was a conspiracy carried out at the
highest levels of our government. It was not the first time nor
will it the last.

Invited by the British Ministry of Defense (War), journalists
visited the U.S. base and reported as predicted, "as if no one had
ever lived there. BBC newsreaders would later refer to U.S.
aircraft flying out to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq from the
"uninhabited" island of Diego Garcia.36

Until recently, the British Foreign Office website denied the very
existence of the people, British citizens, they should have
protected. Knowledgeable politicians, whose job it is to protect
the rights of the citizens, remained silent and allowed and
promoted the policies that desecrated the lives and histories of
the gentle brown-skinned islanders.37 It was ethnic cleansing! What an obvious
difference to the Anglo-American response in the Falkland Islands.

Seven British governments ignored the plight of their vulnerable,
distant, discarded citizens living out an indescribable nightmare
in shanties in the Seychelles and Mauritius, "while ministers and
their officials in London mounted a campaign of deception that went
all the way up to the prime minister."38

Endnotes

^ Diego Garcia is an atoll (A
ring-like coral island and reef that nearly or entirely encloses
a lagoon) 39 miles long and encloses a lagoon 13 miles long and
up to 6 miles wide with depths of 60 to 100 feet.

About the Author

Deanna Spingola has been a quilt designer and is
the author of two books. She has traveled extensively teaching and
lecturing on her unique methods. She has always been an avid reader
of non-fiction works designed to educate rather than entertain. She
is active in family history research and lectures on that topic.
Currently she is the director of the local Family History Center.
She has a great interest in politics and the direction of current
government policies, particularly as they relate to the
Constitution. Deanna's Web
Site